Gonzales County Jail - Gonzales, TX - Retired Prisons on Waymarking.com

The Gonzales County Jail was built in 1887 for a total cost of around $22,000; it was constructed to hold 200 prisoners under riot conditions. Still used up until 1975, it is now a museum ("the Old Jail Museum") and also houses the county's Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture offices.

The entrance hall was once the sheriff’s office. To the left were three rooms, kitchen and bath used as the family living quarters for the sheriff or jailer. All of the ceilings are made of corrugated steel and concrete. On the lower floor are display cases for articles taken from prisoners, information on the sheriffs, deputies and other law enforcement officials who served through the years.

At the end of the hall is the dungeon, where the only light and air came from holes above the door. There is a jailer’s bedroom and the "women and lunatics" cell.

The second and third floors of the brick building feature a large room known as the runaround which is two stories high and used for hardened criminals. The death cells are at the front of this room and feature doors of two-inch iron strips forged and fused through the use of heat, borax and hammer, since the jail was built before welding was invented. In each wing of the room are two-story metal cells, built as rooms within a room and featuring riveted doors.

The old gallows were last used in 1921 and were torn down in the 1950's; they stood in the run-around next to the third-floor walkway. The present gallows are an exact reproduction. Large doors to the cell blocks feature small swing-out doors with bars from which the jailer could observe the prisoners, and inside the room are levers that opened and closed latches on the cell doors.

There were six legal hangings in Gonzales, the first in 1855 between the jail and the jailer’s house that was on Market Square. In 1878 it was estimated that 4,000 people "arrived as to a feast to witness the human suffering and shedding of blood" of Brown Bowen. The last hanging was that of Albert Howard on March 18, 1921.

A legend persists that while Howard was in jail he became obsessed with the clock on the Gonzales County Courthouse located just a few yards away from the building, keeping strict attention to the number of hours he still had to live. He swore his innocence would be shown by the clock, that none of its four faces would ever keep the same time again if he was hanged. Through the years the courthouse clocks' faces have rarely been consistent since then.

The Gonzales County Jail was listed in the National Registery of Historic Places in 1975.

Address: 414 St Lawrence St Gonzales, TX USA 78629 Open to the public: Yes Hours: Mon-Fri: 8am – 5pm Sat: 9am - 4pm Sun: 1pm - 4pm Fees?: Not listed Web link: Not listed

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